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A Flower
A Flower
Copyright © November 8, 2014 by Douglas W. Jerving.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of the author, except
as provided by USA copyright law.
The poem is a reconstruction from memory of a lost poem I wrote
as a teenager. It has, for years, burned upon me requesting to be
rewritten. I never knew how to get back to the original thought and
I am still not sure what it was at that time. Still, it hard pressed
itself upon me, until, reluctantly, I admitted it was still there,
hidden away inside me and waiting to be re-expressed in slightly
different words. Part One is all I remember of it from memory, and
it is written exactly as it was first written. Beyond that, I remember
nothing else but the sensation ( the emotion) of it, which I recreate
as close as I can in Part Two. That is my attempt to recreate the
original poem from deep memory. Part Three is my interpretation.
Throughout, I have attempted to retain the original emotive voice
as well as poetic structure that I remember using when it was first
composed.
Part One
A flower, they say
Feels nothing.
Who knows?
What does science know?
Part Two
It goes to day
But is ignored
And perishes again
The next.
It struggles forward
Hoping for the day
In continued vigilance against the cold
Night that denies its very existence
To the next warm moment in the sun
That falters under clouds and finally
Goes without complaint
Into the dryness ever pressed against it
By the end of its season,
So quietly dying.
The day and night
Know nothing of it
No more or less than
Those who write about it.
It reaches up to touch,
Bending to meet the sky;
Inclining by the day.
The sun it knows
Upon petal and leaf
Known only to itself
Growing full
before perishing.
Part Three
A poem is a point in time
Extended on the page
Distended by the poet’s gaze
At things long gone
Still in the range,
But with a dim lit focus
Inviting present senses
To fill lost attributes.
The flower fades
So that the poem gains its life
From the unspoken
Favor betokened by it
In it’s death and life.
They both are mentionings
Left merely on a page
That will be passed by
Mostly unread.
The poem means nothing
If no one reads it.
And so the flower
Fades away.
Who knows?
No.
Seriously!
Who knows?
What does science know?
A flower, they say, feels nothing.
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Doug Jerving is the publisher of the NewEdisonGazette.com. You may contact him at
djerving@newedisongazette.com.
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